388 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
THE EFFECT OF THE FROSTS OF THE WINTER 
OF 1916-17 ON VEGETATION. 
By E. A. Bowles, M.A., F.L.S., V.M.H. 
At the meeting of the Scientific Committee on April 11, 1917, 
it was agreed that it would be desirable to collect evidence of the 
damage done to plants by the cold of the winter just past, and that 
a report should be drawn up from the result. This recommendation 
was accordingly brought before the Council of the Society, and having 
been approved, the following letter was circulated : — 
Vincent Square, 
Westminster, S.W.i. 
June 1 91 7. 
Dear 
The last winter (1916-17) has been so prolonged and the frost so 
exceptional in many places that injury to vegetation is said to be widespread. 
Further, the nature of the injuries is represented as being different in char- 
acter and degree from the experience of 1908-9, and also to plants other than 
those noted in the report published by this Society after that winter. 
The Council consider it to be desirable that a report should be drawn up 
dealing as fully as possible with the present damage, that it may, when conve- 
nient, be published in the R.H.S. Journal, and has requested me to collect details 
on the subject. Will you, therefore, kindly fill up the enclosed forms, and return 
them to me at Vincent Square at your early convenience. Additional forms will 
be sent if requested. 
It is especially desirable that notes should be collected on plants introduced 
since 1908, but older plants mentioned in the former report (see R.H.S. Journal, 
vol. xxxvi., Part II., p. 358, Nov. 1910) should also be included for comparison. 
I am, yours truly, 
E. Augustus Bowles. 
Forms A. and B. were similar to those sent out for the Frost 
Report on the winter of 1908 and 1909 (see Journal of R.H.S., vol. 
xxxvi., Part II., p. 366 et seq). Form C. asked for information as 
to plants killed or injured in 1908-9 but which in 1916-17 escaped 
injury, or survived with but slight injury. Form D. was prepared 
for lists of plants introduced to cultivation since 1908, and arranged 
to show whether they had been injured or no. 
Considering the difficulties besetting garden work at the time, the 
response to this request was sufficiently general to warrant drawing 
up this report. 
The thanks of the Society are herewith tendered to all those who 
so kindly and so carefully filled in the forms, or provided the required 
information in other ways. 
Special thanks are due to Mr. Vicary Gibbs, who most kindly 
and generously placed at our disposal a valuable report on the effects 
of the winter at Aldenham. 
He was intending to publish it, along with a list of the plants 
injured or uninjured, in the gardening press, but, on hearing that 
the R.H.S. proposed drawing up a report, he at once expressed his 
willingness to allow his work to be incorporated with it in any 
manner we deemed most desirable. 
